one month after announcing his run for president, long was assassinated. note FDRs letter scared of long. coincidence?:
Roosevelt administration was worried by Long's growing popularity and on 4 March 1935, General Hugh S. Johnson in a radio speech denounced Long and Coughlin as this "great Louisiana demagogue and this political padre", going on to accuse the duo of speaking "with nothing of learning, knowledge nor experience to lead us through a labyrinth that has perplexed the minds of men since the beginning of time...These two men are raging up and down this land preaching not construction, but destruction-not reform, but revolution!".[65] The Democratic National Committee chairman James Farley commissioned a secret poll in early 1935 "to find out if Huey's sales talks for his 'share the wealth' program were attracting many customers...We kept a careful eye on what Huey and his political allies...were attempting to do".[63] Farley's poll revealed that if Long ran on a third party ticket, he would win about 4 million votes (about 10% of the electorate). [66] In a memo to Roosevelt, Farley wrote: "It was easy to conceive of a situation whereby Long by polling more than 3,000,000 votes, might have the balance of power in the 1936 election. For example, the poll indicated that he would command upwards of 100,000 votes in New York State, a pivotal state in any national election and a vote of that size could easily mean the difference between victory and defeat...That number of votes would mostly come from our side and the result might spell disaster". [66] In response, Roosevelt in a letter to his friend, William E. Dodd who was serving as American ambassador in Berlin wrote: "Long plans to be a candidate of the Hitler type for the presidency in 1936. He thinks he will have a hundred votes at the Democratic convention. Then he will set up as an independent with Southern and mid-western Progressives...Thus he hopes to defeat the Democratic Party and put in a reactionary Republican. That would bring the country to such a state by 1940 that Long thinks he would be made dictator. There are in fact some Southerners looking that way, and some Progressives drifting that way...Thus it is an ominous situation".[66]